Beholder Tail
by Leadhammer
Summary: An incompetent Dark Guild in an incompetent world.


Uruog was bitch-like and feminine, despite being a man. He was slim and wiry and completely annoyed at his body for not being beefy and cool. He could pass for 'the tomboy' in a series that doesn't have any girls whose physiques stray far from 'bombshell'. He attempted to look tough by sneering like a twat, dressing like a dick, and through the strategic use of hair gel that looks like he carpet-bombed his head with slime. He looked like the pretty boy, foreign boy-band member who is first accused of drug use. He looked like the word 'attitude issues', like the 'cool' older kid who offers the young protagonists drugs in an afterschool special.

Today was a mostly harmless day for him. He was usually like a predator, on the hunt for more shit to get into. Trying to pick fights and find reasons to kill people for looking at him funny. And to that end, moving to Rafflesia was perhaps the only smart thing he ever did. Rafflesia was cartoonishly crime-ridden, the sort of city where you'd see people getting dangled out of windows in broad daylight but never actually get dropped, as if it were a pair of performers putting on a show trying to prove that they lived in a shitty neighborhood. No, you would only see someone get dropped out of a window in your mind. You might see someone's smashed corpse lying impacted into the pavement with their limbs broken and twisting around like the neck of a nosey neighbor who hears what could be a fight brewing next door. Their arms are reddened for some reason even though bruises are blue and they're covered in dirt, though I don't know why. I'd assume that hitting the concrete at Mach 2 would knock the dirt right the fuck off you, but apparently it causes it to cling to you.

And that's nothing compared to the muggings, which are always happening. You'd think people wouldn't go in alleys considering they're Mug Central, but how are you gonna mug someone if you're not in an alley? Then again, why would you WANT to mug someone who's trying to mug someone? They don't have money, smart one! That's why they're muggers!

The city had about a million different serial killers all looking to make people make up a name for them. They were like musicians. Every night, you'd find someone with their throat stomped in, or hanging from a street lamp, or crucified or something. But the newspaper was too busy covering other, slightly more relevant serial killers and couldn't properly hype up the 'Rafflesia Trampler/Hangman/Crucifier'.

Gangs of generic goons constantly flocked the street like migrating flamingos, with their elbows flared out so much their hands could barely fit in their already tiny pockets. Their chins jutting out like torpedos, their legs flailing and gyrating in what can only vaguely be described as 'walking'. They saunter down the street just hoping someone smaller than them will exist so they can jump on him and stand around kicking him and talking smack for an hour or so until someone noble, strong, and handsome comes along and sends them packing.

The city's 'economy' is a joke because there aren't nerds there. It's a city of delinquents that only works because nobody has figured out why it doesn't. But that suits its residence just fine. Rafflesia wasn't Fiore's garbage can, it was the mysterious stain in the bottom of the garbage can that appears after years of liquids dripping out of tears in the bag.

But back to the story.

Uruog was patrolling the streets alone, occupying the role of 'Single badass who can take on an entire gang when said gang inevitably tries to take him down for being alone' (or the 'SBWCTOAEGWSGETTTHMDFBA'), working on becoming 'notoriously badass guy so badass that not even the scum-fuckiest of trashy thugs will attack him because they all know he can kill the shit out of them' (or the 'NBGSBTNETSFOTTWAHBTAKHCKTSOOT'). He wasn't quite there yet because he wasn't invincible. The other day while he was sleeping in public for some reason, a couple of jokers dropped an I-beam on his head from the top of a somewhat tall building (not that the height of the building matters too much considering I-beams are extremely heavy) and broke his nose. He then reduced them to a fine powder and snorted their remains, which is gross and I wish he hadn't done.

There was one nice cafe in town, a small pink building shaped like a shoe-box (that is to say, a rectangular prism) within which lived two shoe-like people and their oddly beautiful, normal-looking daughter. Uruog had a crush on her, of course, but was too slender and bitch-like to confess to her. Their daughter's name was, of course, Stiletto. Because when you're defined by your race and or general appearance that's basically your sole personality trait. Just like how humans are named 'Hugh' and 'Manny' or 'Guy'. I should stress that the people running this Cafe literally were people with shoes for heads. The Cafe was named something, as you can imagine, but the name was never put out front and therefore nobody knows what it's called other than, presumably, the owners.

Uruog had chosen this cafe as his next victim and entered it like a lottery, filling it to the breaking point with himself. That of course just means he walked into the building and was repugnant. The Cafe was incredibly out of place in a city where the average resident probably didn't know what a cafe was or how it was spelled, and as a result almost nobody hassled it. After all, a place so out of place had to have a place there. Sorry, that wasn't funny. My point is, there was something unsportsmanlike about roughing up a cafe so pink, girly, and weird. It would've been like picking on the retarded kid who was hanging out with a group of facially-pierced, scarred bikers. The retarded kid among them had to have some reason for being there and for not already having been beaten up.

Uruog liked it there. It gave him internal peace. He felt like he could relax there, though he couldn't truly. To truly relax, he needed a place where he could wipe the sneer off his face without fear of people questioning his masculinity.

Stiletto liked when Uruog was there because she felt safe. She kind of liked him in a schoolgirl's crush way. He was unconventionally attractive, though that was hard to see through his mile-thick layer of expression-based destability. He was the prototypical badboy that a girl may find herself infatuated with despite knowing he kind of sucks and isn't going anywhere in life. As a result, she was sort of nervous whenever she had to take Uruog's orders. And because Uruog sort of liked her, he felt threatened and insecure and redoubled his efforts to be a complete douche.

"Yo." He spat as she drew near.

Stiletto smiled internally, having realized long ago that being a dick was just his 'thing' and that it should largely be ignored as harmless.

"Why hello." The man bowed submissively, while smiling domineeringly.

"Sup." Adding an extra pop to the 'p'.

"I don't want to waste any of your time, so I'll get to the point."

"You'd waste even less of my time if you left now." Uruog grumbled.

"I'm sorry, but I will have to waste a BIT of your time." The man laughed in an 'I'm trying to sound nervous' way.

"Then I guess this had better be good."

"Oh, I assure you, you'll love it!" The man slammed his briefcase onto the table and flipped it open revealing a small vial in the middle, "I present to you: the Pohmtaurra Particle!"

"Not interested."

"But I haven't told you what it does yet!"

"Look, I'm not a very complicated guy. Trust me when I say: I don't care."

"A simple man, ey? I suppose, living here, you probably get into quite a few fights."

"Yep."

"Ever lost one?"

Uruog's eyebrow twitched, "Nope."

"Surely you've lost at least one."

Uruog grabbed the man and choke slammed him into the floor, cracking the tiles. As blood trickled out the man's nose, he began gasping out apologies. Uruog grabbed the 'Pohmtaurra Particle', popped the cork off and poured it down the man's throat.

"Alright, shitbird, if you're so desperate to show me your snake oil, how about a first hand demonstration?" Uruog's voice had grown manic with anger.

The man choked it down, and as the last drop fell into his mouth, Uruog released him.

"Y-you're *cough* going to regret this!" The man's voice had grown raspy.

"Don't flatter yourself, side character."

The man's back reached to the ceiling and began cracking it. A vein bulged in Uruog's head as chips of ceiling fell into him.

"What the hell, man?!" He jumped up, grabbing the man by the back of the head and slammed his face into the ground, cracking his glasses.

"This is the one non-shithole place in this fucking city, don't break their fucking roof!" Uruog bent the man over his knee and delivered a sharp spank, causing the man to yelp in pain and immediately revert to his small, diminutive form. Uruog dropped him on the floor and kicked him out the front door. Several generic threats were heard from outside but soon the voice shrank and vanished.

"I better get going." Uruog ran his fingers through his hair, then left without paying. As was his way.

"Ba~ack!" Uruog called, kicking the door closed without even looking like a total fucking badass.

"Le~ave!" A lazy voice drifted into the room, filling Uruog with impotent rage.

"Fuck off, Candid, you fucking nerd!" Uruog roared.

"I'm just telling the truth." Uruog kicked open the door to the shared bedroom, revealing a huddled mass wrapped in blankets, polishing a long, wooden pole. Candid sat in almost total darkness like a fucking nerd, in a room that was oddly grey and colorless. The room would probably be more decorated if anybody living in it had the drive or confidence to actually decorate it. A single poster had been hung on the wall to make it seem less naked. It read, with some ironic uncertainty 'Sail On', depicting a small ship travelling on the sea. The room had a number of mattresses, pillows and blankets scattered around, as well as a hammock stretched between opposite walls, and a long, red, velvet sofa-looking-fucking-thing up against a wall with, like, 30 fucking pillows on it.

This was the primary living quarters of an entire Dark Guild.

"Telling the truth?! You just said 'Leave'!"

"Yeah. And I wish you would. It was so relaxing before you got here."

"So boring, more like." Uruog snapped.

"You enjoy your thing, I'll enjoy mine." Candid said, sleepily, before asking in a resigned sort of way, "Who'd you beat up today?"

Uruog hung his head back to stare at the ceiling, contemplatively, counting off on his fingers, "A couple punks down at the docks, a couple bitches down at Zed's, a couple of robbers who shot me," Uruog raised his shirt, revealing several bullet-shaped burns on his torso, "Some fucking nerd trying to sell drugs."

"Shut up."

"You fucking asked, though!"

"I didn't realize how boring it would be."

"God damn it, you're always like this!"

"So why are you still surprised?"

"Fuck this, I'm gonna go talk to... God damn it, I don't live with anyone I fucking like!"

"Like like or just-"

"Ssssssssshutup." Uruog hissed.

"If it's me, I'm not interested."

"You're not even a girl!"

"Yes I am."

"Since when?!"

"Since, like, always, dude."

"Are you, like, cute? Fuck it, nevermind. Where is everyone?"

"I think they all went shopping."

"That was yesterday!"

"What day is it?"

"Today!"

"Shit."

Uruog kicked the door open, hastily throwing his jacket back on, "I'll be back!"

Uruog was about to sprint out the door when he realized the door didn't lead to what it normally should. Instead of opening to the typical blood-stained street scene, it was the smog-choked sky. Uruog poked his head out and looked down, revealing the house was, indeed, high in the sky, with birds flying by. To be precise, it was standing on a pair of enormously long, spindly legs ending with a pair of fatherly loafers.

"Shit." Uruog muttered.

"Something up?" Candid called.

"Yeah-" Uruog stopped himself before he said something like 'Yeah, us.', because that would be horribly unfunny, "Yeah, you could say that."

"Whoa." At some point, Candid had silently gotten up and moved to stand behind Uruog, who was terribly startled by her sudden appearance. However, he hid it behind a manly coughing noise that made him feel better but did nothing to make Candid think she hadn't startled him. Luckily for him, she really didn't care about that sort of thing.

"Yeah, no- Shit! You are a girl!"

Candid stared at him with surprisingly brown eyes, and said in her best 'of course' voice, "Dude."

Uruog had never really bothered to look at her much. She was usually wrapped in rags or scarves or something. Nobody knows where the fuck she got them because in your standard clothing store you won't find a 'random fucking strips of cloth' section. She wore largely baggy clothing to hide the fact she was built like a gangly teenage boy, not that you would think she'd be self-conscious about her figure. But she was.

She was rocking some kind of gypsy-hipster-emo-punk rocker thing that would normally look like someone being attacked by a Raggamoffyn from the Land of Posers, however it sort of fit her. She had short hair, presumably because maintaining long hair would have been too much of a hassle. She had mild 'crazy' eyes, only camouflaged by their usual state of apathy. She had a somewhat wide mouth and, well, nothing much left to say about her. She looked like the kind of girl who becomes 'one of the guys', but still wants to be seen as a girl. She looked like the lead singer in a rock group whose main selling point is having a girl as the lead singer. She looked like the word 'daddy issues', with the dead eyes of 'has worked third shift retail for years'.

"Drop me." Candid advised.

"You got a plan?" Uruog felt on edge, talking to a GIRL, even though they had viciously insulted each other for years now.

"No, I just wanna die. And if you drop me, you'll get arrested for murder, which would make me happy."

Uruog stared at her, wind blowing was the only thing that could be heard.

"No."

"I'll just jump, then." Candid took a step forward.

Uruog grabbed her wrist tightly, stopping her in her tracks.

"How many blankets do we have?"

Some time later

The two had gathered all their blankets, tied them together and Uruog was now dangling out the front door. He was still approximately 100 feet off the ground.

"Hahaha!" Came a tiny, ant-sized voice from bellow, "BEHOLD THE TRUE BEAUTY OF MY POHMTAURRA PARTICLE!"

"Candid, you say somethin'?" Uruog yelled over the wind.

"Whaaaat?!" Candid called from what was clearly the bedroom and/or kitchen."

"MOTHERFUCKER! GET BACK HERE AND HOLD THE ROPE!"

"Noooo!" Candid called.

Uruog looked down at the ground, which seemed no closer.

"Fuck." He muttered.

Then a brick with wings hit him in the head.

"MASONRY, YOU SON OF A BITCH!" The brick curved back around and flew back at him. This time, Uruog smashed it with his fist like a fucking badass.

"Eat shit and die, brick." Uruog said, coldly, like a massive twat.

Then another hit him.

"DO YOU FINALLY SEE THE BEAUTY OF MY LIVING MAGIC?!" The small voice from below screamed up at Uruog.

"QUIT TALKING SHIT, CANDID!" Uruog screamed back into the house.

"Whaaaaat?" Candid called.

"ARE YOU EVEN LISTENING TO ME, YOU IDIOT?!" The voice from below screeched.

"OF COURSE I'M LISTENING, CANDID, YOU SHITBIRD!"

"What was that?" Candid's head suddenly appeared from the doorway like a horror movie villain. Uruog managed to choke back a scream by killing it in his throat, allowing only a vague rasping to escape. Nevertheless, he let go of the rope. He looked at his hands, then up at Candid with a look of utter annoyance.

"We'll finish this later." He said before plummeting back down to earth.

On his journey through the sky, Uruog was pelted with more flying bricks, along with flying knives, flower pots, shovels, etc. However, all were broken by his masculine fists before they could slightly bother him by smacking into him.

"IF YOU THINK BRUTE STRENGTH IS ENOUGH TO STOP MY MAGIC YOU ARE SORELY-"

"CANDID, FOR THE LAST FUCKING TIME!"

"WHO ARE YOU TALKING TO, YOU FOOL!" Cried the lowly fucking nerd that was rapidly growing larger.

"DON'T ACT LIKE-"

"SHUT UUUUUP!"

Uruog smashed into the ground, landing right on top of the nerd who was yelling at him, who had been too blinded by anger to move from his spot directly outside where their door was. Uruog's impact craterized the ground, instantly knocking out (and possible killing) the man he landed on.

"Fucking Candid! First she's a girl, then she won't shut up." Uruog stood up, dusted himself off and looked behind him, "Oh, it's you!"

The man lay in a heap, fucking dead.

"Where are my fr-" Uruog caught himself, "The people I unfortunately have to associate with?!"

The man lay in a heap, bleeding slightly.

"The silent treatment?!" Uruog's eyes caught fire to further illustrate the point that he was cartoonishly angry.

The man lay in a heap, dead as shit.

"This'll fix ya!" Uruog began punching the man, causing giant bruises and swelling to occur with each strike.

"Why are you punching a dead guy?" Came a surprisingly clear, girly voice.

Uruog looked up to see a girl staring down at him, a look of concern on her face.

"Lace?" Uruog's face defaulted to the bunched up grimace he wore when asking a question.

"Obviously." Lace said, unimpressed, her somewhat sweet, concerned expression radically shifting to that of slight disgust.

"It's... well..." Uruog realized she probably wouldn't understand, "He really pissed me-"

"Don't wanna hear it." She held up a hand and he sighed in resignation.

"Where are Awalijjer and Kabbal?"

"Kidnapped, I think. Anyway, I need you to go get them."

"Yeah, yeah." Uruog sighed.

There was a sudden, loud crash. The two turned to see their house back where it belonged.

"Do I want to know?" Lace grimaced.

"Just the usual." Uruog ran his fingers through his hair.

"Whatever." Lace shook her head and began walking.

Lace was the only truly 'decent' looking member of the guild, she is why she fulfilled the essential role of 'mascot'. She had appeared on a cover of Sorcerer Weekly, which became one of the their most controversial and popular issues ever.

Lace didn't really look like a dark mage, not that there's a particular 'look'. I suppose most of them look like freaks, but that's not the point. She looked like a nauseatingly girly princess, usually. If you gave her the chance, she'd put on a frilly, white and pink dress and glittery slippers and do her hair up in a bow and you'd just wanna strangle her by the end. However, in this case, what she was wearing was far more practical. She was wearing the equivalent of Uggs, leggings and a sleeveless, winter jacket. She looked like the personification of a ritzy cafe. Like if a perfume advert was a person. Though she wasn't so artificially attractive, it was much more down to earth, authentic, heartwarming and whatever. Her skin looked like tanned porcelain and her hair was like what disgusting things have nightmares about becoming.

"So what happened to Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb?" A reference that's surely anachronistic in this universe, but whatever.

"They got ambushed by a bunch of roided out freaks. And because they put MY safety above their own - like a bunch of nancies - they got kidnapped and I'm stuck wandering the streets alone."

"Poor baby."

Lace's pouting intensified.

"So, do you have any clue where they went?"

"I found a trail of saliva that I'm assuming is-"

"Kabbal. Probably."

The city was ripe with all sorts of bodily fluids; blood, urine, sweat. However, saliva was a rare oddity, possibly because it might actually clean up the place.

The two found it. A snail-trail of saliva that was frankly not an acceptable amount for any human being to produce.

"How hot were his fucking kidnappers?" Uruog surveyed the scene with a mix of amazement and disgust. Kabbal was a bit of a 'perv', you could say, and could drool buckets when faced with a proper babe.

"Not very." Lace sounded concerned and confused and slightly jealous because Kabbal hadn't drooled like that for her in a long time, "Not sure what's going on."

"Well, let's get-"

"Is that a bathhouse?" Lace stared down the street.

"Shut up, you idiot. You know there isn't a-" Uruog saw the bathhouse that wasn't supposed to be there, "Why is that there?!"

Rafflesia had never been nice enough to have a bathhouse, and this was, without a doubt, a top of the line establishment. It was several stories, surrounded by regal trees and dapper bushes and circumvented with a steaming pond dotted with lily pads.

"You don't suppose..."

The two looked at each other and noticed the drool leading straight to the odd building.

"Shit." They said in unison.

Approaching the bathhouse that wasn't supposed to be there, they found two things. One, there wasn't really a way to get to the door, which was cut off from the rest of the world by a steaming pond. And two, that the street actually had a pretty substantial dip in it that they probably wouldn't have noticed had it not be filled with boiling drool. Lace stared at the puddle in disgust.

"What a predictable creature."

"Shut up."

"Well? Throw down your jacket or something you peasant!"

"Fuck no!" Uruog snapped, "I'm not ruining my jacket just for you!"

"Well, I'm staying out here then." Lace crossed her arms defiantly, like a child who's just about to stop breathing until they get what they want. Uruog grabbed her by the arms with one hand and lifted her off the ground. As his right ear was hit with a barrage of impotent protests, he pulled his arm back, aimed and tossed the small girl across the gap so she landed in front of the door.

"YOU ARE THE WORST!" She whined.

Uruog hopped across the pond and landed next to her.

"Yeah, yeah." He grumbled.

"Why do I even need to be here?!" Lace complained further, but seemed to have already realized that it was pointless.

"Look," Uruog kicked the door open, revealing a long hallway that the two began walking down, "Nothing's gonna happen to you, alright?"

Lace then ran face first into a pane of glass, shattering it. She fell to her knees and pressed her hands against her face, just barely holding back tears.

"Alright," Uruog held up a finger, "Starting NOW nothing's gonna-"

"Shut up!" Lace hiccuped.

The glass pane was actually more like a glass shard, though now it was actually SEVERAL glass shards due to the intervention of Lace's face. It was rather enormous, jutting through a tear in the paper wall and sticking out a good 4 feet.

"I wonder if that's Kabbal's doing."

"Do you know anyone ELSE who fights with a giant glass shard?"

"Just because I don't KNOW anyone doesn't mean nobody else does it, you muppet!"

Lace kicked Uruog in the shin, injuring her foot.

"Shins of steel, bitch!"

The wall where the shard had been was rapidly growing red and damp, presumably with blood. Uruog grabbed the tear and ripped it open, causing a body to slump out onto the ground at his feet and proving that the red liquid was indeed blood.

"Yo, Lace, is this one of the freaks who kidnapped the dumbasses?"

"You really are a gem to talk to, you know that?"

"Fuck you."

"Yes, it is." Lace rolled her eyes.

The man had been stabbed through the chest with a glass shard and impaled on the wall. He didn't look like much, mostly like a guy. Just a guy. Just an average, rather ugly criminal-ish type guy. Upon further inspection, they found what was unmistakably a guild mark. Or a rather ugly, mediocre tattoo.

"Members of dark guild?"

"Or a regular one." Lace shrugged, "Either would have a reason to hunt us."

"But look: he's ugly." It was true, "He MUST be a member of a dark guild."

"Yes.

That is good." A slithery, squirmy voice crept through the halls.

"KABBAL!" Uruog barked at it.

"I liiiiike."

"Kabbal, stop being a dick!"

"They are dead.

That is good.

There is blood.

I like." The voice normally would have sent a chill up someone's back, like feeling the presence of a ghost around them. However, it only served to annoy Uruog and Lace.

"Conversations with him are always so fun." Lace sighed.

"I think it's coming from over here." Uruog pointed a disinterested finger.

It's true that it WAS coming from over there, as was made evident by the thickening trail of blood and saliva. The two followed the bloodstains, the bloody hand prints and the 'God help us's painted on the wall with blood. They could hear a faint panting, coming from a nearby room.

"Ooooooh gooooooood." Lace moaned as the halls grew bloodier and the stench grew thicker the closer to the room they got.

"What... the... fuck..."

Deeper in the heart of the bath house, there sat a gentle pond overlooked by a sakura tree. A babbling brook was fed by a small fountain located in a small rock outcropping. It normally would have been a mellow, peaceful sight were the entire room not painted with blood. They found Kabbal crouched primly atop a mountain of bodies, his enormous tongue lolled out, a splash of pink in a sea of red. His face was stuck in its permanent grin, but his eyes were closed and a shadow seemed to be cast over his face. Kabbal was human, by a somewhat loose definition. He was such a concentrated ball of weirdness that he made up for the fact his teammates weren't really all that weird. His upper body was jet black, with an unnaturally wide mouth full of cruelly blunt teeth. It was criss-crossed with extra mouths, which had a habit of spouting out random comments. Three growths like an axolotl's gill stalks protruded from either side of his head.

"Kabbal, get down from there!" Uruog snapped.

Kabbal then collapsed and rolled down the hill, landing in a heap at their feet.

"Oi, you shit! Kabbal!" Uruog kicked at him, "Get up! Ugh... There's a bunch of naked ladies in here!"

Kabbal lay still.

"Oh shit, this is serious." Lace knelt down next to Kabbal. He reeked of blood and sweat.

"Is he breathing?"

"...Yeah."

"Oh." Uruog spat, "Drama queen."

"Can you hold off on insulting him for a few seconds?" Lace placated.

"C'mon, a few dozen goons shouldn't be enough to put you down!"

Kabbal's blood trickled onto the floor, spelling out the words 'Fuck you'.

"Well fuck you, too!" Uruog was about to kick him again, when Lace stopped him.

"If there's someone in here strong enough to take out Kabbal, we should be more careful!"

"There ain't anybody here that's strong enough to take me out!"

"Awalijjer could, assuming she's here."

Uruog clenched his fist. He hated how people just assumed because she was the guildmaster that Awalijjer could beat him.

"I'll give him medical attention, you go find Wali."

Uruog turned away and returned to the hall. The building was surprisingly large, probably the work of magic. It's halls were clinical, it was on a grid system. There were rows upon rows of rooms that were all identical, a fact Uruog was privy to because he had to check ALL of them.

"WALI!" Uruog screamed, "WALI, YOU SHITBIRD!"

"OOOOOH BOOOOY!" Came a fat, annoying voice.

"WHERE'S WALI?!" Uruog screamed in response.

"OOOOOOOH BOOOOOY!" Came the voice.

An incredibly large, enormously fat, naked man rounded the corner. He wore nothing but a towel around his waist and another around his neck, as well as a petite cowboy hat on top of his round head. He was positively shiny with sweat. He swung his short arms in front of him, his head gyrating constantly.

"OOOOOOOH BOOOOOY!" He called, "OOOOOH! I'M JUST STEAMED! I'M BOILIN' WITH RAGE! I'M HOT TO TROT! I'M JUST-"

Uruog buried his fist in the man's stomach, sinking it in up to the elbow. He found it A) didn't seem to hurt the man and B) was blazing hot. He recoiled, his upper arm burning and screaming in pain.

"OOOOH BOOOY!" The man knelt down to be at Uruog's level, "YOU SHOULDN'TA DONE THAT!"

"Bite me." Uruog hissed.

"BOILERMAN MAGIC!" The man reared back, his arm swinging growing faster. He seemed to be readying to hock a spitball, steam rising from his open mouth.

"BRAT BASHER!" Uruog yelled, swinging in for a punch with the same arm. This time, the arm grew drastically larger, nearly 4 feet in diameter. Extra arm hair sprouted on it, and his sleeve turned to a nasty plaid pattern. It ploughed into the man's chest, the impact sending shockwaves that blew the paper out of the walls around them. The floor underneath the man cracked, but he seemed able to absorb the blow. After a momentary clash, Uruog pulled his fist back. A huge burn mark covered his fingers and knuckles.

"BOILERMAN MODE!" The fat man now had pot-belly stove-like door on his stomach and a fire could seen to be burning inside his belly. Steam poured off his pink skin. He patted his sweat-slicked forehead with his towel.

"My blood's boiling." He grinned.

"Shut up, shithead." Uruog growled, "I don't really like having to use this technique, but I feel like I have to. DAD BOD!"

Candid had realized that, at some point, she was probably obligated to help her 'friends'. She sighed in the dark, and clapped her hands together to turn the light on.

"What a pain."

It wasn't hard for her to find where Uruog and Co. had gone. Candid had always had a pretty good nose, and was able to pick up on Lace's distinct scent because it was just about the only nice smelling thing in the city. And when she saw the bathhouse, which seemed to be jammed between two other buildings like a fat person separating an otherwise would-be happy couple on a train, she knew that's where they'd be.

Boilerman stared in awe at what stood before him. Then he burst into laughter.

"What'cha laughin' at there, sonny?" Said the giant, portly, jolly looking man facing off with Boilerman.

A small propeller hat suddenly appeared on the naked, fat man's head and he responded in a seemingly involuntary way, "Nothin', pa."

Boilerman shook his head, knocking the propeller hat off, "What're you playin' at there, you bastard?!"

"Why nothing, son. But if you mouth off to me one more time I'll tan your hide." The jolly man wore a green, garish plaid shirt and suspenders that held up a pair of uninspired khakis. He sported curly, ginger-brown hair and beard that covered what would be a chiseled, 1950's alpha male face. A black, nearly featureless pipe stuck out from his huge row of pearly whites. His thumbs were stuck in his suspenders, both hands gripping a rolled up newspaper.

This was Uruog's magic.

"I'm BOILIN' to take you down!" Boilerman fumed.

"Oh? Want to do some roughhousing? A little father-son bonding?" One of Uruog's newspapers transformed into a mug of coffee. He pulled out his pipe and took a sip, "Dad Magic: Caffeine Hammer."

Uruog suddenly became a plaid blur that rushed in front of Boilerman. Before he could react, Uruog's mug disappeared and he swung his newspaper at his opponent.

"DAD MAGIC: FRONTLINER!"

The newspaper smashed into Boilerman's head, slamming him into the ground.

"Oh, come now, sonny. Can't keep up with your old man?" Uruog said in a new, deeper and more wholesome voice. The ground rumbled and cracked beneath the two, before giving way completely.

"My goodness, son." Uruog mused as he fell into darkness. He managed to land on a piece of wood and regained his footing. He was in the middle of an enormous, steaming sauna. Boilerman fell into the grey water, causing a cataclysmic splash and generating a wall of boiling water. Uruog grit his teeth and bounced out of the way, landing on a rock that jut from the watery depths. He looked down and was a bit unnerved to find that he couldn't see the bottom. After a moment, the place where Boilerman landed began to boil and froth. From the depths rose a black, round shape.

"OOOOOH BOOOOY! YOU REALLY GOT MY BLOOD BOILIN'!"

Uruog waved at him with his pipe, before placing it back in his mouth and sticking his thumbs into his suspenders, "Agh, yes, my boy! What were you thinking sticking a bigger spa under your smaller spas?"

"BOILERMAN MAGIC: HEATWAVE!" Boilerman smacked his palm onto the water's surface, a magic circle appearing on the surface. An enormous wall of water loomed over Uruog, who stared up at it, puffing on his pipe.

"Well, I'll be-" The wave crashed into him and swept him into the boiling water.

"BRAT BASHER!" Uruog flung a punch, blasting away a cone of water, "SMOKESCREEN!"

He released a huge cloud of smoke from his pipe as he cartwheeled through the air, quickly vanishing into the black smog. Boilerman reached down, opening the hatch on his stomach, releasing a column of steam. The two separate vapors began to intermingle, at which point Boilerman flailed his arms around and roared, "BOILERMAN MAGIC! STEAM CLOUD!"

Just as the steam and smoke began to grow wavy from the heat, a voice appeared behind Boilerman, "Dad Magic: Time Out." Uruog dealt a lightning fast judo chop down the center of Boilerman's head, sending a shock through his entire body. He collapsed and fell into the water. Uruog watched him sink, then looked up at the whole in the wall.

"Dagg'um it." He muttered. He hopped from foot to foot experimentally, then made the jump directly upward.

After a great deal of theatrical, melodramatic coughing, Kabbal sat up.

"Oh thank goodness." Lace sat back, exhausted from doing absolutely nothing.

"I live.

That is good." Kabbal hissed, inspecting his heavily damaged body.

"Yoooo." A familiar voice called.

"Candid is here.

I like.

It is good."

"Candid? Over here!" Lace yelled in Candid's direction.

"Yoooooo." After a second, Candid rounded the corner, whistling to herself, "Hey, what happened to Kabbal?"

"She said my name.

I like."

"Stop being weird!" Lace smacked Kabbal on the back, causing him to cough up blood. However, he didn't seem bothered by it.

"I am fine.

Lots of blood.

That is good.

It was tasty."

"Neat." Candid looked at Lace, "Where'd Uruog go?"

"He went to find Wali."

"Which way?"

Lace pointed.

And Candid set off.


End file.
